throwing a ball

Today, when I was walking home from Evening Prayer, along a fairly busy road, a ball flew out of a fenced garden and across the road. Luckily there was no traffic got distracted by its arrival - and as it was a small child sized ball I was not surprised not to see anyone appear to retrieve it. So, I decided to pick it up, cross the street, and throw it back.
Much to my surprise, from behind an apparently impenetrable eight foot fence a little voice announced, a lady picked it up and she's going to throw it back. As I was only half way across the street it was by no means certain I was going to throw it back but as I got closer the same voice again announced - its a lady, she is throwing it back. I did and the voice shouted "Thank-you."
As I continued home I pondered the faith which the owner of the voice had in me, as a grown up, to be nice and do the right thing and throw the ball back. And that made me wonder how often children look at us, as grown-ups, in that way and then get let down.
Our church school sits in an area where there are a lot of social needs - despite the best efforts of various agencies some of the children leaving the primary school are already giving up on themselves and this is sad and way too young. It is not really about throwing balls back but about being the sorts of people who insist that a world or society which allows children to be pigeoned holed and lose faith in themselves and their own possibilities at any stage is doing something wrong.
One child went to bed tonight believing that an unknown grown-up had helped a little - I wonder how many go to bed with a very different view.